1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a process for making medical gloves that are substantially free of loose powder but are nevertheless easy to don.
2. Description of the Related Art
Medical gloves generally have to conform tightly to the hand of the wearer. That requirement makes it hard to don the gloves, unless they have a lubricant on their inner (skin-contacting) surface. Powder of one form or another has traditionally served this lubricating function; however, post-operative complications, such as adhesions, peritonitis, and granuloma formation have been attributed to the use of loose powder on surgical gloves and other items used in surgery.
To avoid the potential complications, there have long been efforts to reduce or eliminate the need to use powder to facilitate donning of medical gloves. A number of approaches have been tried, including halogenating the gloves, blending rubber and resin latex, and depositing granular material on the inner surface of the gloves. These attempts, and their drawbacks, have been summarized in U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,109, issued on Mar. 6, 1979, to Stockum, and the disclosure of that patent is incorporated herein by reference. Stockum's patent discloses yet another approach to avoiding the need to use loose dusting powder to permit easy donning of gloves. His approach involves having an inner layer of the glove that is bonded to the outer, elastomeric layer. The inner layer has embedded in it particles that are distributed throughout and that are greater in size than the thickness of the inner layer. Thus, the particles protrude from the inner surface, while remaining secured to the surface and not being easily abraded off. A problem with that approach is that the number of particles to be contained in the inner layer has to be carefully controlled. If too few particles are embedded, donning remains difficult. If too many particles are used, some loose particles could remain and could possibly cause the undesirable medical effects.
Another approach to facilitating medical glove donning is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,499,154, issued on Feb. 12, 1985 to James et al. That approach makes use of a skin-contacting coating of a lubricating hydrogel bonded to the inner surface of the glove and treated with a surfactant to improve its lubricity. However, it is not capable of providing gloves that are as easy to don as powdered gloves.